The Cartographers’ Guild is a forum created by and for map makers and aficionados, a place where every aspect of cartography can be admired, examined, learned, and discussed. Our membership consists of professional designers and artists, hobbyists, and amateurs—all are welcome to join and participate in the quest for cartographic skill and knowledge.

Although we specialize in maps of fictional realms, as commonly used in both novels and games (both tabletop and role-playing), many Guild members are also proficient in historical and contemporary maps. Likewise, we specialize in computer-assisted cartography (such as with GIMP, Adobe apps, Campaign Cartographer, Dundjinni, etc.), although many members here also have interest in maps drafted by hand.

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ. You will have to register before you can post or view full size images in the forums.

My First Hand-Made Kingdom of Rym map

Hello guys, actually its my first topic, so i dont have to tell you that im new to mapping, although i love it!!
I used some nice guides, by Ironmetal250 and Gidde.
I have more experience with Photoshop, but i've had to use GIMP to do the map's texture. Now im practicing with GIMP only and i hope to master the basis soon so i can do everything with just one program.

I've had a hard time trying to do the sea, because i've wanted to keep the texture from GIMP. After some tries i did it myself and i liked the results, at least it was more unique haha.

The language is Portuguese, but if anyone want i can change it to English.

Thanks and im waiting for advices, because i really want to improve myself.

Hello. Thank your for your first map posting. As I see you labled this a "Finished Map", please consider my response as what you could do for the next map, instead. The overall visual impact is nice. In the details I see some things I like, and some things I am questioning, in graphics, and geography.

You created a nice 3D "piece of paper" (parchment) for the map. I like its torn-edges and shadow, very much. It sits on what I will call "the table" (or perhaps it is tacked on "the wall"). But then 2 other features I see, tending to destroy the illusion of 3D parchment paper: (1) your scale and your compass rose are floating above the piece of paper, and off the edges, like the writing goes onto the table. It's like "L" and "S" are written with the ink and font of the map, yet "N" and "O" are the same ink, but completely off the paper. You could move the compass rose, smaller, onto the paper. (2) The border. A map border drawn ON a map can be nice. Your border is not on your "map", but on your background instead, the environment you're creating to toss your parchment map for a thematic display. Let's call the background: the table, or the wall. Would a table have a map border like that? I prefer you make "the map" entirely on the inner paper, and everything outside the torn paper edge will be the background (a table, a wall, a place the paper map is sitting in the real world). On the background table area, remove every feature that can only be on the actual map paper (compass, scale, border). Maybe change the grey-paper-looking background to something more like table, wood or tablecloth, or just leave the grey parchment all the way to the edges, as a drawing surface or underlying paper.

On coloring, you seem to have a slight, subtle amount of navy blue, on the smaller rivers -- yet the largest rivers appear black. For example zoom on the area of Jebituk in the west. They look like roads, highways, being black as such, but I determine they must be the bigger rivers. Perhaps make the large rivers, a bit navy blue in color.

Now to look at your geography. I have some amateur feedback here. I am learning more about geography and world-building from reading Cartographer's Guild and links from here. My oh my that appears to be quite a massive mountain at Pico da Tempestade! The scale of that one mountain symbol, in the top right corner, makes it look very big -- and that is probably what you intended for this area. Next I was thinking about your rivers. The overall hydrologic flow looks pretty good but I saw a few areas to question. Maybe some rivers are less realistic, not behaving as water will behave. Generally rivers come together and flow to the sea. Generally rivers do not split apart as they go (except for small splits flowing around an island, that is too small to notice on this scale of map, for the island will sit within the normal thick "line" of the river on this scale of map). A river has no reason to split and fork apart. All the water tends to pull the same direction (the direction that is more steeply downhill and eventually flows to the sea). So you have GOOD rivers (tributary rivers join together) near Milonar and Rocon, and on the overall map zoomed out seeing water flow from mountains down to ocean. But you may have a BAD river split at Ricatior, and Selva dos Sapos maybe. Examine those rivers again on your map. Near Ricatior, I think the whole river will bend (if there is an elevation feature along the coast of Covil das Tartarugas Gigantes), or if the river is finding a channel to flow to Covil das TG, then the whole river will start to cut that direction, rather than forking. That little river spur from Ricatior to Covil das TG is probably the one river that stands out to me the most on a quick read of this map. The river split above Selva dos Sapos is also unexpected, although I guessed you may be representing the entire swampy area is flooded and pierced with waterways here. Still it seems odd because, what is making the river do this division north of Selva dos Sapos? The river action at Ssravrass may be a special case. Rivers only split apart at the mouth of a delta region. If Ssravrass represents a swamp and delta, maybe the river would split apart like this. For comparison I looked up information saying the Nile River Delta on Earth is 160km in length, so perhaps a delta can begin so far from the coast. By Ssravrass it appears your delta is around 100km in length.

Thanks Gold!! I see your point, im not good at geography, so yes sometimes and do mistakes like this. Rivers for me is a challenge, its hard to me to give a good shape to a river. Maybe with a better resolution of the map you can see the navy blue, but yes it seems like a road. I i will find out how to fix that before i start my gaming haha.

The compass and the scale i assumed they put it in the a glass in front of the map, cuz i couldnt find a nice edge on the map to put it. Maybe it could be smaller. And the scale i dont know how to do it, so i just did it that way.

I will try to fix that things, thanks for your help, i need it cuz sometimes i just say, "well its a fantasy world, everything can happens" and that is my bigger mistake!!